For example, a CCD solid-state imaging device includes a floating diffusion amplifier in an output end portion of a horizontal charge transfer path, and outputs a picked-up image signal corresponding to the charge amount of a transferred signal charge. In the amplifier, as disclosed in JP-A-2006-148512 (paragraph [0006]) (corresponding to US2006/0109360A1 (paragraph [0009])), an impact ionization phenomenon occurs when a signal is amplified, and weak light (infrared light) is generated.
When the light emitting phenomenon occurs in the amplifier of the solid-state imaging device, the light propagates through the semiconductor substrate to expose the pixels, thereby generating noise charges.
In the case where a highly sensitive image pick-up is performed by using a solid-state imaging device, particularly, the signal charge amount which is generated in accordance with the amount of incident light from the object is small. When noise charges due to the light emitting phenomenon of an amplifier (hereinafter, the phenomenon is often referred to as the light emission from amplifier) are accumulated in pixels, therefore, the S/N ratio of a picked-up image signal is impaired, and the image quality of an object image is largely degraded.